Robert Miller: Warblers thrive under the wires

Updated 12:10 am, Saturday, June 1, 2013

There's still a fair amount of forest in the state -- about 60 percent of the land is woods.

There's still farmland. There's even a conscious effort to preserve it.

There's lots of lawn. There's blacktop.

But brush lots -- what's called early succession forest, the land that was field and is now growing back to forest -- is in real demand. And one of the birds that might best symbolize our state -- the blue-winged warbler -- needs it a lot.

Luckily for it and other brush land species, there's one place in Connecticut that's constantly brushy -- the 1,000 miles of electric utility rights of way that thread their way across the landscape.

The utilities cut trees that grow too tall and too near their lines. But working with groups like Audubon Connecticut, they're learning to be selective and not too rigorous, to let the scrubby growth be.

Blue-winged warblers -- bright yellow birds with blue-gray wings -- are one of the small, beautiful jewels of such habitat.

Patrick Comins, director of bird conservation for Audubon Connecticut, said the state is so important for blue-winged warblers because it's centrally located in their breeding range. They're not birds of the deep North Woods or the coastal plains or southern swamps. They like scrubby, overgrown lots.

"It's a bird that really only breeds in the northeast part of the United States,'' he said.

When the state had a lot of farm fields growing back to woods, such habitat was plentiful. Now it's getting scarce.

Comins said other birds, like prairie warblers, yellow-breasted chats, field sparrows and Eastern towhees like the same habitat. So do gamebirds like ruffed grouse and American woodcock. So do Eastern cottontail rabbits, box turtles and wood turtles.

These species are all in decline in Connecticut. Towhees, singing `Drink your tea. Drink your tea-eeee,'' are declining at a rate of about 5.8 percent a year.

"That doesn't seem like a lot,'' Comins said. "But over a period of 20 years, it can mean a decline of 70 percent.''

At the Bent of the River Audubon Center in Southbury, where Comins has his office, efforts are underway to learn best management practices in maintaining brush lots in a way that most benefits the species that depend on them.

It's also trying to educate people that occasionally clear-cutting a space is good forestry practice, creating a space that will become brushy and valuable in a few years.

"We still get people complaining at Bent of the River if we cut a tree down,'' Comins said.

Corry Fulsom-O'Keefe, who heads the Important Bird Area project for Audubon Connecticut studied blue-winged warbler populations in utility rights-of-way for her master's degree. She found they provide the state with excellent habitat for brush land species.

"I don't think people think about this,'' she said.

Frank Poirot, spokesman for CL&P, said the utility understands the importance of these rights-of-way for the state's wildlife. While it cuts down any tree that grows within 15 feet of a line, Poirot said the utility is learning to let brush be brush.

By and large, he said, people stay off the strips.

"There doesn't seem to be a lot of activity on them,'' he said.

But birds? Poirot said there is a simple way for people to understand the usefulness of these unkempt ribbons of land.

"If they stop their cars and roll down their windows and listen, they'll find out,'' he said.